The U.S. Army admitted Thursday to blocking its personnel from accessing any stories about the National Security Agency leaks covered on the Guardian newspaper's website in an attempt to preserve "network hygiene."

"Until declassified by appropriate officials, classified information — including material released through an unauthorized disclosure — must be treated accordingly by DoD personnel," Van Vleet said. "If a public website displays classified information, then filtering may be used to preserve 'network hygiene' for DoD unclassified networks."

Twitter users spoke out angrily about the Army's ban on the Guardian's stories.

So the US Military doesn't think our soldiers have a right to access information available to the rest of the world? http://t.co/eKe8MkuZU5

The U.S. Army admitted Thursday to blocking its personnel from accessing any stories about the National Security Agency leaks covered on the Guardian newspaper's website in an attempt to preserve "network hygiene."